State College rallies in support of ‘Justice for Black Lives.’ But work remains, organizers say
Don’t tell 28-year-old activist Tierra Williams she should feel more hopeful after watching Sunday’s scene unfold in State College.
Sure, more than 1,000 people from all walks of life — old, young; black, white — descended on the downtown, chanting “Black lives matter” while holding signs like “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” But Williams, one of the speakers of the peaceful three-hour march, said one or two gatherings alone weren’t enough to change hearts.
While she was “pleasantly shocked” at the turnout, she said, the road to true equality still has a lot of Sunday marches left. And if the “Justice for Black Lives” movement hopes to get there, then Sunday was just another small step — not a reason to hope that change will simply come Monday.
“It is heartwarming to see all these people,” Williams said, motioning to a sitting crowd of about 1,500 on Burrowes Street. “And that’s why I tell all these people, I hope they’re taking it beyond being with us. When you’re home or in your own organizations or in your group chats, or you’re hearing things at the bar, are you standing up to it then?”
Sunday’s march in downtown State College was the second in as many weeks, following the May 25 death of George Floyd, an African American man who was killed by Minneapolis police after an officer knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. He died after wheezing, “I can’t breathe,” after pedestrians yelled at officers that they were killing him. Three other officers looked on.
But Sunday’s local event wasn’t just about one man’s death. Organizers brought dozens of photos of similar black men and women killed by police and/or racism: Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery — and even Osaze Osagie, a 29-year-old State College man who was shot and killed by police last year while being served a mental health warrant.
“We’re here to bring awareness to the State College community on Black Lives Matter,” said Jada Pettis, 21, a Penn State student. “And we’re here for Osagie and his family, and we want them to get justice. We’re here for change.”
Protesters in homemade face coverings and surgical masks met at the Allen Street gates at 6 p.m., taking up almost a full city block on both sides of the street — in addition to supporters lined up behind the gate. Some protesters simply sat near the sidewalk, letting their signs speak for themselves, like, “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” and “Black Lives Matter.” Others shouted “No justice!” while others responded “No peace!”
Marchers listened to speakers at the gates, before walking through campus and downtown with stops at Burrowes Street and the Municipal Building on South Allen. At the first and last stops, Divine Lipscomb, 37, read a list of 10 demands while the crowd clapped after every point. They demanded:
- Implementation of a Community Advisory Board to address discrimination, bias and racism in local government and police
- Divestment of guns during the service of mental health checks and mental health warrants
- Revision to Standards of Operating Procedures, which emphasize de-escalation strategies to be used during engagement and consequences for failure to execute
- Public access to officer misconduct information and disciplinary history when death results
- Public release of protocol and body cam footage for officers accused of misuse of force and race-based policing
- A ban on the use of knee holds and choke holds
- Release the names of all officers involved in all shootings and fire Officer No. 1, the unnamed State College officer who shot Osagie
- Financial compensation to the Osagie family
- Transparency and the release of policing data regarding policing with special attention to race and ethnicity
- A reallocation of funding away from the local police department to programs that address root causes of suffering and violence
Until those demands are met, organizers said, they will continue to march. They plan to do so again next Sunday, on President Donald Trump’s 74th birthday.
“We hope the police hear us out,” Pettis said. “That’s the first step. Then the next step will be coming back out here every day, peacefully, and saying the requests until there’s action taken.”
A melting pot of people nodded along with the speakers at the event, organized by the 3/20 Coalition, named for the date Osagie was killed. Some came with back braces or gray hair; others brought young children who designed their own glitter-inspired signs. One young woman walked a corgi with a “BLM” bandanna, and several Penn State football players — such as QB Sean Clifford, TE Pat Freiermuth and CB Tariq Castro-Fields — blended into the crowd.
There were tears, shouts, anger, frustration and hope. There were new protesters and returning protesters, white students and black residents.
“I’m a white guy, so this march isn’t about me,” said Zak Kalp, 24, a Penn State grad and redheaded protester. “But I’m here to support the voices that aren’t being heard and the lives that really matter and are endangered — and that’s black lives.”
During one poignant moment, at the Municipal Building, silence befell the crowd when longtime political activist Charles Dumas read from a column published Sunday in the Centre Daily Times. His gravely voice carried when he recalled, 65 years before, the memories of staring at the mutilated corpse of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy who was tortured and lynched after allegedly wolf-whistling at a white woman.
“The desecrated remains I saw in that glass-walled casket stayed in my nightmares long into adult life,” he said, adding the horrors continued when an all-white jury acquitted the murderers in about an hour.
Dumas marched back then, and he still marches now. Williams, whose 5-year-old son bounced near her all day, said she didn’t want her son to have to march when he grows up.
But, she wondered aloud, what would that take? Martin Luther King Jr. was calm and peaceful, she said, and he was beaten. Barack Obama had a seat at the proverbial table for eight years, she said, and nothing has changed much for Black America. Public schools in African American communities are still less educated, and historically black colleges and universities are still underfunded.
That’s why, she said, she’s not more “hopeful” just yet. But that’s also why she isn’t going anywhere.
“We’re going to continue to be out here,” she said. “We are going to continue to march until we get our demands met. We are not playing. This is not a joke. I am here now so this is not going to fall off in a couple months.
“If you are about justice, if you are about change, stay with us. Walk with us, march with us. Stand beside us in this struggle because we are not going away — and we are not stopping until we gain justice for Osaze. We are not stopping.”
This story was originally published June 8, 2020 at 7:16 AM.
